Agenda loaded for Town Meeting

Chelmsford tackling energy plan, golf club, turf-field proposals

By Grant Welker, gwelker@lowellsun.com

Updated:
04/27/2013 06:36:17 AM EDT

CHELMSFORD -- Town Meeting will vote on 34 articles beginning Monday, including an $18 million energy-efficiency project for town-owned buildings, a proposal to add turf athletic fields at two schools, and proposed zoning for medical-marijuana dispensaries.

The list of items to be voted on also includes deciding a course of action for the razed Chelmsford Country Club, maintaining the 66-acre town-owned Oak Hill property conserved open space, and allowing for a potential dog park at the current public-works facility on Richardson Road.

Town Meeting representatives will also vote on the proposed Fiscal 2014 budget of $110.8 million, which would rise by $2.6 million, or nearly 2.5 percent, compared to the current fiscal year.

The meeting will begin Monday at 7:30 p.m. at the Senior Center at 75 Groton Road.

The energy-efficiency project is projected to cost the town nothing in the long-run, and would, in fact, make money, according to Johnson Controls, the company hired for the project.

Chelmsford spends about $1.6 million on utility costs each year for the schools and other buildings it owns, which Johnson Controls says could be cut by 43 percent. Those savings would pay off money borrowed for the efficiency improvements.

The Community Education Center, formerly the Westlands School, and the new Department of Public Works building on Alpha Road would also have rooftop panels. More than 2,200 streetlights townwide would be retrofitted with efficient LEDs, or light-emitting diodes. Equipment in schools and other buildings would also be replaced with more efficient models.

Synthetic turf fields would be added at football fields at McCarthy Middle School and the high school in another proposal.

The $3.1 million plan requires $1.2 million in Community Preservation Act funds from property-tax surcharges to help pay for the fields. Another $575,000 would come from the town's capital budget already earmarked for the new McCarthy track. A town bond of $800,000 would be repaid through user fees, rentals and possible naming rights for the fields.

The remainder, $500,000, is expected to come from private fundraising.

For the town-owned Chelmsford Country Club, the town has outlined three potential options.

The town's preferred route of demolishing the remaining part of the existing building and replacing it with a prefabricated one would cost about $500,000. Voters could also choose to replace the former enclosed addition with a deck, which would cost at least $86,000 or as much as $110,000. A third option, expected to cost around $300,000, would involve rebuilding the addition similar to how it was, which would require additional repairs.

Voters will also be asked to approve allowing the Chelmsford Dog Association to use part of the public-works site on Richardson Road as a dog park, for which the group has raised only a small share of the estimated cost of up to $100,000. Most public-works operations will be moving to the new facility on Alpha Road.

Another proposal, if approved, would enact a moratorium banning any marijuana-treatment facility from opening in town until after Dec. 31. Another question will ask voters to approve new zoning regulations that would restrict the location of any such facility.

Such a treatment center, if given a special permit by the Planning Board, would have to locate in either an industrial or special-industrial zone.

Industrial zones include large swaths of land bordered on the west by Turnpike Road and including Billerica Road, Brick Kiln Road and most of Riverneck Road. Other commercial properties in the Drum Hill area and a piece of land in North Chelmsford between Tyngsboro Road and the Williamsburg Condominiums are also industrial.

The special-industrial zone is a nearly inaccessible block of wooded property between Route 3 northbound lanes in North Chelmsford and the Oak Hill property.

Welcome to your discussion forum: Sign in with a Disqus account or your social networking account for your comment to be posted immediately, provided it meets the guidelines. (READ HOW.)
Comments made here are the sole responsibility of the person posting them; these comments do not reflect the opinion of The Sun. So keep it civil.